


Skybound

by StopTalkingAtMe



Category: Z Nation (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, F/M, References to depression and suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 18:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20247532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/pseuds/StopTalkingAtMe
Summary: Before Warren rescued her and brought her to the skybound haven of Camp Blue Sky, Addy had spent some time in an earth-bound community, with heavily fortified walls forever under attack from the brass armies of the dead. It was gone now, that community. She'd seen it overrun. And she knew too, that in the early days of the end of the world there had been four other great skybound rafts like this one, and one by one they’d all fallen. Beautiful Camp Blue Sky might be, but it was running out of time.





	Skybound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ideare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideare/gifts).

There had once been a time when the young Addison Grace Carver had dreamed of sailing upon an airship. As absurd as that dream had been back before the Turn, her father, something of a dreamer himself, had encouraged it. Some of her earliest memories were of their visits to the airship docks, how he’d pick her up and set her atop his shoulder so she could watch the huge stately airships gliding smoothly to and from their moorings, trails of steam eddying in their wakes.

They’d been enormous up close, and it had seemed impossible to Addy that things so huge could remain skybound or move with such grace, although now she knew something more of airships, she realised they’d been great lumbering things in comparison to the _ Quintessence, _the ship which had become her temporary home.

When Roberta Warren had first brought her on board, it had taken Addy a while to get used to the low muted thrum of the boilers that ran on atmospheric aether. It was less a sound than a vibration that reverberated in her chest like the purring of a cat. Once, on one of their evenings spent playing gin rummy and drinking moonshine, Warren had claimed the ship was alive. She’d smiled as she said it, her hand resting against the inner bulkhead, and Addy had naturally assumed she was joking, but when she drifted off to sleep it was all too easy to imagine whispering voices hidden in the gentle creaking of the ship, in the whistle and howl of the wind and the crackle from the luminescent moonglow lanterns, powered by aether like everything else on the ship.

Addy had something of a knack for aether. Her father had an amateur’s enthusiasm for alchemy and artifices, the more elaborate the better, and he'd maintained a hobbyist’s collection of aetheria with which he encouraged Addy to tinker, thinking it better training for her mind than needlework, much to her mother’s despair. In the end, Addy supposed, with a painful pang in her heart at what felt like a betrayal of her mother, her father had been proved right.

They’d glimpsed Camp Blue Sky at last, at first little more than a glimmer of sunlight reflecting on glass and metal, made hazy through its gauze of smoke and steam. If Warren hadn’t pointed it out, Addy wouldn’t have known what it was. There was a hazy unreality to it, some trick of mist and veiled sunlight, which made it seem like a hallucinatory trick of the light. But then, she’d only ever seen the skybound havens from below, and not for a long time.

"Is that really it?" she asked.

"That’s it."

Addy frowned, studying it as they drew closer. "I suppose part of me never really expected to see it," she said after a while. "We’ve been travelling for so long."

Warren grunted. "It’s drifted more than I expected. It isn’t where I thought it would be."

"Is that a problem?"

"Probably not. I don’t like it, but I doubt it’s anything to worry about. Guess they just had to pull up anchor for a while, that’s all. Might be something tried to climb the line."

Addy shivered. "Is it anchored now?"

"No way to tell from this distance." Warren’s frown had gone, smoothed over by a look of contented anticipation. "It’ll be good to be home, that’s for damn sure. Some decent food, a hot bath. Well..." She glanced at Addy, the corners of her lips twitching. "A warm bath, at least."

"You make it sound like heaven," Addy said.

"It’s something," Warren said. "It ain’t perfect, but these days where is? It’s a good place. Good people."

Addy glanced at her, withholding a smile. "Anyone in particular?" she said, all innocence. Warren gave her a look of warning that said _ watch yourself _. But there was a distracted look in her eyes and Addy suspected she wasn’t too far off the mark.

Out on deck, it felt more real. It could simply have been her imagination, but she thought she could already smell it, the clean crisp after-storm scent of aether-produced steam mingling with wood smoke and the inevitable reek that any large community produced.

The journey so far had been agonisingly slow. The country had been picked clean, the combined work of the constructs and of the dwindling number of survivors that were left. Warren said it seemed like each time she had to travel further and further in order to glean less and less. This time she’d been out seven months and had painfully little to show for it except another mouth to feed. Warren tried to frame it as another pair of hands, but Addy was painfully aware how fundamentally unsuited to surviving in this world she was. Frankly, it was a miracle she was still alive.

** **

* * *

** **

Two men were waiting for them on the dock. The older man, dressed in a dark coat of military cut, had a thick growth of stubble and overgrown brown wavy hair, while the other was of an age with Addy, his blond hair cropped short. His gaze lingered on Addy in a way that made her feel deeply self-conscious, painfully aware of the grimy sweat-stained shirt she was wearing and the men’s breeches belted at her waist. She fought the urge to touch the primed and loaded twin flintlock pistols that she wore at her waist as they moored.

"You all right?" Warren asked, and Addy nodded, her mouth dry.

"Just a little nervous,."

"You’ll do fine. You’ll fit right in."

The men came forward as Warren hopped down the gangplank.

"I wasn’t expecting a welcoming committee," Warren said, holding up a hand to help Addy down.

"I’d have strewn the dock with flowers if you’d given me a little more warning," the older man said, and then he smiled and the expression transformed his face. "I’m glad you’re back, Roberta."

"It’s good to be back," she said with feeling and they clasped forearms, eyes locked in a way that made Addy feel like she was eavesdropping on something private. Her gaze flitted to the blond man, who gave her a look of friendly commiseration, not quite rolling his eyes. She pressed her fingers to her lips, hiding her amused smile.

And then they were pulling apart, and Warren gestured with a flourish of her hand to Addy. "Sergeant Charles Garnett, Mack Thompson, may I present Miss Addison Carver of Seattle. She saved my life." Which was a not inconsiderable overstatement, Addison thought, but Sergeant Garnett turned towards her and gave a slight bow.

"Then we’re indebted to you, Miss Carver," he said. "And Seattle? We’d heard there were still some surviving outposts to the north-west."

"To the best of my knowledge they’re all gone," she said and while the brightness in his eyes darkened, he nodded grim-faced as if that had been the answer he’d expected, even if he’d hoped for something else. "But Warren’s exaggerating, sir."

"That doesn’t sound like her," Mack said, and Addy smiled at him, a little distracted. Garnett had moved back to Warren’s side and was leaning close, murmuring something in her ear. Whatever it was, it made Warren’s smile fade. She glanced up at him with a frown and something passed between them.

"I’m afraid I’m going to have to borrow Warren for a moment," he said. "Mack, could I trouble you to give Miss Carver the tour?"

"Yeah," Mack said. "My pleasure."

"Take good care of her," Warren warned, and Mack nodded.

"Yes, ma’am."

Warren shot Addy another glance, eyebrow raised, and Addy tried for a confident _ I’ll be fine _ smile, and then Warren and Garnett were heading away. She sighed inwardly, watching as Garnett leaned close to murmur something to Warren. She nodded in response, not seeming to see the look he cast her, the way his gaze lingered on her face for a moment or two before he looked away.

"They seem..."

"Close?" Mack suggested. She glanced up at him, found him grinning. "Yeah, Warren and Garnett have known each other a long time. So." He held out his arm, and Addy took it automatically, her hand resting on his forearm. "What do you want to see first?"

** **

* * *

** **

Warren and Garnett threaded along the thoroughfares that ran across the raft like veins on a leaf. The raft itself was a patchwork of canvas stretched taut between a skeleton of strengthened ribs, the closest thing to solid ground many citizens of Camp had walked on since the Turn. It had changed since she’d last been here; when she’d left there had been about two hundred people living there and she judged there were probably twice that number now, if not more.

The tenor of their footsteps changed as they moved over taut stretched canvas and panels of sheet metal, past the tents and canvas awnings of the shanty town, through patches of sunlight filled with pots overflowing with plants.

In between the tents, aethermills rose up, stretching past the canopy of the zeppelins and up into the sky to pull down what little aether they could harvest. They were ramshackle constructions of junk bolted together with whatever fixings people had been able to get hold of, in some cases even knotted together with twine. Precariously balanced, they twined around the suspension ropes that kept the raft afloat, squirming past the swollen bellies of the balloons towards whatever scraps of sky their engineers were able to find. Small mills like these could never hope to do much more than power a few lights or harvest enough energy to heat a stove for long enough to cook a meal, but they served to make people’s lives a little more comfortable. So long as they worked anyway.

Garnett held back the flap of his tent for her and followed her inside. Once they were out of sight, he gathered her into an embrace. "Damn, I’ve missed you," he muttered into her hair. "Where the hell have you been?"

She pulled back so she could look up into his face. "You knew I’d come back."

"Like hell I did. Seven _ months _, Roberta. You know what could have happened in seven months?"

"I checked in as often as I could."

"Not often enough." He broke away and ran his hand over his face with a frustrated sound. "This whole damn raft’s held together with spit and prayers. Nothing works right and it’s getting worse."

"You want to speak to Miss Carver about that. Girl likes to tinker. She’s good at it and she wants to help."

He nodded. "We’ll find something for her to do, don’t worry." He turned to the table, and cleared his throat, "Look, Roberta, before you left..."

"You don’t have to say anything."

"Yeah, I do." He turned back towards her, toying with the neck of a bottle of alcohol. "I wasn’t in a good place back then."

"You’re looking better," she said and meant it. He looked tired, but everyone looked tired these days, and at least the hollow look of despair had gone from his eyes. There was a flicker of something that was almost a smile on his lips.

"You know, I _ am _ better," he said, and brandished the bottle. "Drink?"

Warren was expecting throat-searing corn moonshine, but the amber liquid in the glass he handed to her was whisky. _ Real _ whisky. From before the turn.

"You’ve been holding out on me," she said, taking her first sip as she sank down on the cushions. It was good, flooding her mouth with flavour, and the burn when it hit her throat was tempered with mellow smoky heat.

"I told you a lot can happen in seven months. I’ve been keeping that hidden for a while now, waiting for a special occasion."

"What happened?” she said, smiling as he sat down facing her. “You get tired of waiting?"

"If there’s an occasion more special than a homecoming damned if I know what it is."

"I saw the hive, Charlie," she told him, her voice quiet. His smile faded but he didn't interrupt. He sipped his whisky, eyes darkening as he listened. "I went too far west. I’ve never seen anything like it. The sun was setting, and all the ground and the sky around it was black with constructs. Looked like wasps swarming."

"Jesus."

"They’re picking the land clean like locusts, stripping it bare of everything of use. There’s not much left out there." She hesitated. "Is it just me or has the raft drifted further than usual?"

He nodded grimly. "It’s not just you. We’ve had to pull up stakes a couple of times. They’ve been swarming more. A couple of times they’ve tried to climb the anchor line."

"Like something’s got them riled up?"

"Maybe. Seems like they’ve settled down now though." He held his glass up. "Here’s hoping our luck and the peace will last." They swallowed down the whisky in one, and Warren closed her eyes, relishing the flavour, the flood of peat and honey, how it reminded her of better times. When she opened her eyes she found him watching her.

"I thought I’d never see you again," he said. "I missed you."

She reached up and touched his cheek. "I was always going to come back," she told him. His eyes lingered on hers, and Warren hesitated, coming to a decision. Slowly, she set both glasses aside and brought her lips to his in a tentative kiss. 

It deepened quickly. Garnett curled his fingers around the back of her head, pulling her close, but it was he who broke it off and pressed his forehead against hers, his eyes half closed. And then his eyes opened and met hers. A look passed between them, and they were kissing again, harder and hungrier than before, and while Warren hadn’t exactly planned for this for this to happen, it was fine, it was _ good _, especially when he brought his mouth to her neck and kissed the sensitive skin just beneath her ear in a way that sent shivers of pleasure and anticipation rippling through her body. 

She dropped back on the cushions and drew him down atop her.

** **

* * *

** **

It was almost overwhelming. Addy had thought she was ready, but nothing could have prepared her for the clamour and reek of so many human beings. 

She felt beset by the mingled smells of food and smoke, of sweat and unwashed skin, not to mention the constant noise, the chatter and shriek of children, the muted roar of the engines, and the thrum of the aethermills, which rose to a not-quite subsonic whine as she passed by them. Or the way the ground vibrated under her feet, so different from the constant gentle motion of the airship. Here the tremor seemed to rise up through the soles of her boots and drilled into the marrow of her bones. It made her teeth feel like they were being shaken loose. And there were people everywhere: children ducking in and out of tents in a game of chase, and traders with their meagre wares spread out on blankets. 

She found herself clinging a little too tightly to Mack’s arm, and he glanced at her. "You all right?"

She tried to smile. This was, after all, what she had wanted. "It’s..."

"Too much?"

She hesitated, but she couldn’t see anything in his eyes except concern. "A little," she admitted and he nodded.

"Come on," he said, and started to lead her down a narrow alley where the air was thick with the smell of frying onions and humid from the wet laundry strung out to dry at regular intervals. The alley was too narrow for them to walk abreast, so Mack was forced to go on ahead of her, and Addy felt both irritated and embarrassed at the stab of reluctance she felt at letting go of his arm. 

Suddenly, without warning, they emerged into full sunlight. The sudden brightness was so unexpected, it startled her, and she dropped her head back to see no balloons overhead, the dying sun of late afternoon. Here, in a roughly square courtyard some twenty yards square and fringed with food stalls, the raft was open to the sky. It was a park, she realised, a scrubby rectangle of grass surrounded by raised beds filled with soil that must have been hauled up from the surface. The beds overflowed with flowers in a riot of colour and fragrance.

Addy stared, entranced by the notion that there might still be gardens for people to tend purely for the sake of enjoyment, until she realised that Mack was watching her. He looked amused and she schooled her expression into something she hoped made her look a little tougher.

"Better?" he asked, and she nodded, her heart’s rapid pace calmed by the fragrance of flowers. There were glass houses too, she noticed, sparkling like cut diamonds against the sides of the raised beds.

"It’s so beautiful," she said. "I can’t remember the last time I saw a garden."

"No gardens down on the ground?"

"Not like this. I mean, people grow things, but they’re just scraping what they can out of the soil."

"We grow some food here," he said, indicating a couple of raised beds which were filled with herbs, thyme and rosemary and sage. "Mostly the soil isn’t deep enough, so it’s really just for show. But Garnett figures people need sunlight as well as food."

She raised her face to the light, feeling the warmth of the sun on her cheeks. "Where _ does _ your food come from?"

"The surface, mostly, plus what we can scavenge and trade for. There’s some mushroom farms in the underworld.

She gave him a quizzical look. "The underworld?"

In reply, he stamped his foot against the canvas. She clung to him a little tighter as it bounced beneath her. "I am never going to get used to that."

"Yeah, you will. Everyone thinks that at first. There’s a whole network of nets and ropes beneath us. People live down there too."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah." He grinned at her. "Don’t be fooled, Miss Carver. Not everyone’s as charming as me. We’ve got our share of misanthropes living here." He stopped, a glimmer of interest in his eyes. "Your turn. Tell me something about yourself."

"Such as?"

"I don’t know." He shrugged. "How’d you end up travelling with Warren?"

_ Oh _. "There’s not much to tell."

"Bad memories?"

She nodded, unable to bring herself to look at him.

"Hey." He stopped and took hold of her hand. "Whatever happened, remember you’re safe here." His voice was insistent, utterly sincere. He believed it, she realised. He wasn’t just trying to comfort her; he genuinely believed it completely. And maybe he was right, but Addy had seen the rickety nature of the aethermills. Everything looked like it had been slapped together or patched up one too many times, and she knew only too well that there was a limited number of times that the delicate mechanisms inside the mills could be repaired before they began to degrade at an exponential rate.

But more than that: she’d seen _ them_, those warped monstrosities, the bodies of men and women and animals, reworked and refashioned with augments of brass and copper and glass, refashioned according to some pattern that none but the constructs could fathom. Before Warren rescued her, she’d spent some time in an earth-bound community, a lawless dangerous place, its heavily fortified walls forever under attack from constructs. She’d spent her time on the wall as had everyone else, had learned to shoot the twin flintlock pistols she’d stolen from a dead man. She’d sat and watched from the wall in a numb and terrified silence as the army of the dead paraded past, _ thousands _ of them, their brass eyes gleaming. Some travelled on wheels or caterpillar tracks, others shambled or crawled, and still others loped along on unnaturally elongated legs. A cloud of dust and steam rose up in the wake of their passage, choking the lungs of the survivors who waited for the danger to pass, knowing that it never truly would, that it would only take an instant – an unexpected sneeze, a child’s cry – and the army of the dead would wheel around and surge like a storm tide against the community’s inadequate walls.

It had happened before; it would happen again. And she knew too, that in the early days there had been four other great skybound rafts like this one, and one by one they’d all fallen. Beautiful this place might be, but it was running out of time.

** **

* * *

** **

Warren lay awake, sore but in a good way. It had been too long, and for both of them gentleness had quickly given way to need. She’d left scratches on his upper arms, and her fingers trailed down them as he kissed the top of her head. She was thinking that she had to get up; she needed to find Addy and make sure she was okay, but Garnett’s arm was draped across her, and as easy as it would be to dislodge it right then it felt like a ten ton weight. It had been a while since Warren had been able to let herself sleep deeply, and Garnett was warm and she could still feel his touch on her skin and the rough crush of his mouth against hers. All she wanted was to stay in this moment a while longer. Just a few more minutes and she’d get up. Just a few more minutes and she’d find Addy, she swore.

"I need to know something," Garnett said softly, and something about his voice made her look at him. "Was I the reason you stayed away for so long?"

"No," she said firmly. "It wasn’t you." His gaze slid toward her. "It _ wasn’t_."

"All right," he said, and smiled, but she could tell he didn’t believe her. Not that she could blame him: she wasn’t sure she believed it herself.

It came back to her then, a memory of the first time they’d made love, not long before she’d left. They hadn’t been gentle then either, and afterwards she’d woken up to find him gone. She’d picked her way through camp to find him smoking a cigarette at the edge of the raft. Too damn close to the edge. She said his name and he glanced back, his eyes catching the golden light of the lanterns so that for a moment he’d looked like one of them. He offered her a drag on the cigarette, holding it out between finger and thumb, and Warren shook her head, her mouth dry because she liked the expression on his face even less than she liked how close he was to the edge. She wanted to tell him to come away, but at the same time didn’t want to draw his attention to it, like he just hadn’t realised how close the prospect of death was.

_ He wouldn’t, _ she thought. _ Not Charlie. _ No way in hell had they come all this way for it to end like that. He didn’t say anything and neither did she, but she sat by him, wondering whether she’d be able to stop him if he tried to jump, or if he’d take her down with her.

She’d always believed in people’s right to choose their own way out, to opt for suicide if that was what they needed. It took a certain type of person to survive in this world, and she’d always assumed Charles Garnett was that type of person, but now, seeing him like this, she wasn’t so sure any more. She took his hand, twining her fingers through his. 

When he’d finished the cigarette, he flicked it out over the edge and they watched it plummet like a falling star. He teetered on the edge and for an instant she was certain he’d go after it. She said his name and he looked at her, his face unreadable, but he followed her mutely away from the edge, stumbling like he was drunker than she’d thought. They went back to the tent and they’d fucked again, and that time _ had _ been gentle, and pretty damn good all things considered, and after that he’d seemed better for a while, at least until the cracks began to show. 

Whatever had happened to him before the turn, and Warren had a few ideas, it had broken his heart.

But then, like so many other things, broken hearts had a way of mending. Warren couldn’t remember being so glad of anything in her life. 

She rolled towards him and brought her lips to his, but before things could start to get interesting, someone started to pull the tent’s flap back.

"_Wait _!" Garnett yelled, and whoever it was stuttered an apology.  "Now’s really not a good time. What the hell do you want?"

"We got some visitors," a voice called. "They say they want to speak to you. They say it’s urgent."

"Damn it," he muttered, then out loud, "Okay, I’ll be out in a minute. And after that we need to have some words about the concept of privacy."

Warren laughed at the look he gave her, arousal and exasperation and amusement all rolled into one meaningful glance, then he was up and snagging his clothes from the floor. She watched him dress appreciatively for a while, then reached for her own clothes.

"Stay," Garnett suggested, shrugging his shirt on. "’I could do with your advice..."

She shook her head. "Addy’s on her own. I’d better check on her, make sure Mack’s behaving himself."

"Mack’s a gentleman," he said, starting to buttoned up his shirt, and she moved closer, finishing up the last couple of buttons.

"At least someone here is."

"Ouch." He gripped her hips and pulled her close, but grimaced at a cough from outside. He let go and backed towards the entrance. "You’re staying, right?" he asked. "For a couple of weeks at least."

"That an order, Charlie?"

"If that’s what it takes to get you to stay, it’s an order. We’ve got a lot of time to make up for." And with that, he ducked through the flap. Warren heard him say, "This had better be important."

Warren finished dressing, raked her fingers through her hair, and followed him through the flap. Outside it was starting to get dark. Garnett was speaking to one of the camp runners, who did a double take when he saw her, before his expression split into a grin. "Welcome back, ma’am," he said, snapping off a lazy salute, but the grin quickly faded when he saw the dangerous look Garnett was giving him. The kid ducked his head, clearing his throat awkwardly, and Garnett glanced at her with a shadow of a smile at the corner of his lips. He did look better, she realised, a little more grey in his hair, maybe, but he looked like he’d been getting _ some _ sleep, at least.

"We got a problem?" she asked.

Garnett shook his head. "Don’t think so. Some visitors who want to trade, I think, but I could always use the moral support once you’re done babysitting."

She was still grinning as she walked out of the tent and along the main path, returning greetings. People were settling down to their evening meal, and in a place as small as this, gossip spread fast. Judging from the smiles she was getting, the gossip concerned more than simply her arrival.

Addy turned out to be in the gardens, and maybe Warren shouldn’t have been surprised to find her with tools to hand and her head gear in place, working by the light of a lantern on the inner coils of a damaged aethermill. Mack was looking on, bemused, and he glanced up at Warren’s approach, brought two fingers to his forehead in a salute.

"I thought you were giving her the tour," Warren said.

"We got sidetracked."

Addy looked up, her right eye grotesquely magnified behind the magnifying lens. "Everything go all right?" she asked, her voice innocent.

"We had some issues to work out," Warren said, and Mack coughed into his hand. Warren shot him a look, and he looked away, smirking. "I wanted to make sure you were doing okay, but I guess you’ve got things in hand. When you’re done..."

"I’ll go back to the ship," Addy said. "And don’t worry, I’ll take good care of it. In case you, uh, have anything else to work out."

"I’ll meet you on the _Quin_," Warren said firmly. "And Mack..."

"Take good care of her. Yeah, I got it."

Warren caught the shy little glance Addy cast him and hid her grin. She excused herself and and headed back to Garnett’s tent, picking up the pace when she heard raised voices. She loosened the flap of her holster, tugged the flap of the tent open, and ducked inside, her hand on her revolver. The conversation fell as they turned towards her, and she took in the scene.

Two strangers, both male. Garnett looked tense and irritated rather than angry, which was a good sign. One of the men, the sweaty mess by the table, the remnants of a glass of whisky in his hand, she judged not to be a threat. He looked like he was suffering through the world’s worst hangover, his eyes concealed behind smoked glass lenses and his dark hair ragged and overgrown. The other man, the African-American with a nasty scar twisting one cheek, he was a different story. 

His gaze dropped to where her hand was touching her gun oh so casually, and lifted back up to her face. "You’re Warren?"

"I am," she said cautiously, already not much liking the way this was going.

"I’m told you have an airship. My companion and I are in need of transport."

She opened her mouth but Garnett jumped in. "Warren’s one of our best scouts, Sergeant Hammond, and I’ve already told you we can’t spare her."

"You don’t have a choice."

"There are other ships in the dock."

"Yeah, and I’ve seen them. They’re wrecks." Hammond pointed at the other man, who looked like he was pretending not to notice, turning the glass in his hand. "I didn’t drag that asshole’s––"

"Watch it, there are ladies present," Garnett growled. Hammond gritted his teeth, but raised a hand in apology to Warren.

"Begging your pardon, ma’am. I didn’t drag my _ companion’s _ sorry carcass all this way to die in flaming wreckage or get robbed and dumped over the side by people no better than pirates. Now I’ve been told you actually have a passable ship––"

Warren raised an eyebrow at Garnett. "Passable," she said coolly, ignoring Hammond. "Is that what you called it?"

"Don’t look at me like that," he said. "I called it a lot worse. I was trying to put them off."

"Doesn’t sound like it worked."

"––_ And _that you’re a woman of honour," Hammond said, raising his voice to cut into their conversation. "Was I told wrong?"

"All right, that’s enough," Garnett said. "Honour or not, the_ Quintessence_ is not for hire. And Warren here’s been away for the best part of a year. Even if she was willing to head straight out again, there’s no way in hell I’d let her."

_ Let me? _ Warren raised an eyebrow at Garnett, who gave a barely perceptible shrug.

"Now, you’re welcome to stay here," he continued. "Camp Blue Sky’s always open to people who want to trade in peace, and Warren’s ship isn’t the only airship that stops through. Might be you can find alternative transpo. And if you’re willing to wait until Lieutenant Warren’s willing to head out again, she might take you some of the way––"

"And when will that be?" Hammond interrupted, turning back to Warren. A muscle bunched in Garnett’s jaw, but he stayed silent, waiting for her answer.

"We need to refit, make some repairs. A couple weeks at least."

"Couple of weeks is fine by me," the man in the corner called out.

"Shut up, Murphy," Hammond said, without even glancing at him. "No, that’s too long, ma’am. We need to head out sooner than that."

"Then you’ll have to keep your fingers crossed and hope for another ship willing to take you on," Garnett said. "And there’s another thing, Warren’s only going to be able to take you part of the way. California’s out of the question."

"_California_?" Warren said and laughed. Murphy glanced up at her. Hard to tell behind the glasses but he looked worried. "Yeah, that’s not going to happen, gentlemen. Ever. The west coast’s crawling with constructs. It’s where the hive is. Nobody’s gonna take you there."

"See?" Murphy said, snatching up the whisky bottle. "Told ya. Oh, well, too bad. Guess we’ve got no choice but to stay here and enjoy these fine people’s hospitality." Without saying a word, Garnett grabbed the bottle and removed it firmly from Murphy’s grasp. "Hey!"

Hammond held her gaze. Then through gritted teeth and without taking his gaze away from Warren, he said, "Come here, Murphy," and then, when Murphy didn’t move, Hammond hauled him forward none-too-gently, ignoring his protests. "The hive is exactly where we’re headed, ma’am. Show these fine people why, Murphy. Take the spectacles off."

"The light hurts my eyes," Murphy protested.

"Take off the damn spectacles," Hammond repeated. Garnett moved to stand by Warren, his posture as tense as hers. Slowly, Murphy reached up and removed the spectacles. Beneath, his knitted brows, his eyes were tightly closed. Hammond shook him. "Open your eyes."

Murphy did.

Warren gave a sharp intake of breath, drawing her revolver on instinct. Beside her, Garnett had done the same. Murphy blinked, stepping back, and Hammond moved in front of him, one hand holding his gun, the other out in a gesture of peace. Warren’s gaze flicked to him, then back to Murphy.

Beneath the glasses, his eyes were blank, devoid of pupils and iris, of anything except a shining expanse of brass. A little like a construct. _ Exactly _ like a construct. 

Murphy half-turned away, fumbling his spectacles back on. "See?" he muttered. "Could’ve told you it was a bad idea."

Hammond ignored him. "Hear me out," he said.

"What the hell is he?" Garnett demanded. "He’s one of them?"

"He’s not a construct," Hammond said. "I don’t know what the hell he is, but they don’t attack him. It’s like he’s invisible to them."

"Then he’s safer off this raft and down on the ground," Garnett said. "If my people see him..."

"Which is why we need to secure transport as a matter of urgency," Hammond said, glancing at Warren. "Think about it. You said the hive’s in California? You’ve seen it?"

She nodded. "From a distance. No way in hell I’d go any closer. The damn thing’s as big as a city."

"And from what I hear it’s growing. It has to be stopped. If it isn’t, you’re dead, sir. Your lady friend, too. And this man right here…?" He gripped Murphy’s arm and drew him forward. Warren and Garnett exchanged a glance and reluctantly lowered their guns. "...He might be able to do exactly that."

"He doesn’t look all that happy about it," Warren said, and Murphy flashed her a sickly half-mad grin.

"You’re right, sweetheart. I’m travelling in the company of a madman." He let out a laugh. "You’re crazy, Hammond. _ Crazy _, because there’s no way in hell that I’m going anywhere near any kind of hive."

"Is it true they don’t attack you?" Garnett asked, and Murphy yelled, "No!" right at the moment Hammond said, "Yes." Hammond’s expression contorted in irritation, and he turned on Murphy, about to snap at him.

And that was the moment the screaming began.

** **

* * *

** **

At the first scream, Addy’s head snapped up. Mack was already on his feet, gun drawn. People looked around, uncertain what to do, some backing away from what they seemed to think was the source of the screams, others moving towards it. Her vision was flat and distorted, a fish eye view of the world, and she tore the headset off and threw it aside before scrambling to her feet, drawing the first of her loaded flintlocks.

"They’re here," she said, her voice hollow with dread.

Mack was shaking his head. "They can’t be," he said, but people were beginning to flee in earnest now, shoving and clawing at each other in their panic. "They must have climbed the anchor line," she said, turning her horrified gaze towards Mack. 

"Fuck." He shot a guilty glance her way. "Sorry."

Addy shook her head. "Fuck’s about right, Mr Thompson. Can we pull up the anchor?"

"If they’re already here it’s probably too late," he said. He met her gaze, coming to some decision. "But we have to try. Come on."

As they ran along a narrow passageway between two tents, something clawed at her through the canvas tent. She cried out as she fell against the opposite tent, more from surprise than shock, and the cry was barely audible above the sound of ripping cloth. She brought up the flintlock as the construct wrenched its way through. Like the dog in the fairy tale, its eyes were like saucers, and its hot breath beat against her cheek. It reeked of the furnace, of molten iron.

Her hand pressed against its forehead, holding it back, finding the skin waxy and hard to the touch, and she pulled the trigger of the flintlock. The flint struck the frizzen, the spark dropping into the powder charge, and the instant of delay before the pistol fired seems to last an age. Then the powder ignited. The lead ball tore upwards into the construct’s cheek, ripping it open to expose jaw and muscle and teeth, and buried itself in the brain.

The construct fell away, leaving Addy panting in shock, her arm aching from the flintlock’s backfire, her ears ringing from the explosion. She cried out again when Mack grabbed her.

"You all right?"

She nodded, heard herself say numbly that she was absolutely fine and her voice seemed to come from impossibly far away. The screams and smoke that surrounded them seemed like an ever-shifting labyrinth, disorienting and choking her all at once. She covered her mouth with her sleeve, her eyes stinging, as they ran through the chaos, zigzagging between tents.

At a corner, they stopped, and Mack peered around the side, checking to see if the coast was clear, then jerked back and flattened himself against the wall. They could hear someone screaming, fraught howls of terror and pain that went on and on and _ on _until they were cut short. Mack glanced around the corner again, and gave a nod, and it didn’t take long before they found the source of the screams, now silenced but not quite yet dead.

They stepped around the thrashing body of a man, his mouth distended and his eyes wide, showing the whites. His mouth gaped silently, and there were deep welts on his face where he’d clawed at his cheeks. In the depths of his throat something liquid and metallic was squirming down his gullet. His eyes rolled in their sockets, begging them for mercy without words.

Addy fumbled for her other flintlock, but Mack caught her wrist, his face white, jaw tight. He shifted his grip around his knife and told her hoarsely to look away. She didn't.

"Did you know him?" she asked when it was done. Mack nodded but didn’t say anything, not at first, then he opened his mouth to speak.

Something scythed through the air. 

He pulled her back against the wall, as something large moved through the smoke nearby. It made a sound like scissors cutting through silk. It was big, whatever it was, and Addy caught a glimpse of a bulbous abdomen, many slender legs. Her throat felt scratchy, and she pressed against Mack, fighting the urge to cough, her throat suddenly so itchy it was painful. Her chest convulsed, and then it was gone.

"All right," Mack said, "All right." He took a breath. "_ Shit _. All right, come on."

And they moved, hurrying past more tents, the endless shanty town until they turned the corner and froze. Beyond the tents was a sea of seething brass. More constructs than Addy could count. A thousand eyes like saucers slowly swinging her way. They jerked back, out of sight.

"Is there another way around?"

He shook his head. "It’s too late."

"But we need to raise the anchor. And Warren, Garnett––"

"It’s _ too late _, Addy. We gotta go. Warren and Garnett can take care of themselves. We have to get to the ship."

Her protests died in her throat. She could hear the rattling, mechanical sound they made, like a death rattle deep in the lungs, and she could smell them too, the reek of not-quite-rotting flesh. They were getting closer.

He was right, she thought, flooded by a deep sense of shame. They had no choice.

** **

* * *

** **

Warren had seen them fly before, but never this close. 

What remained of the construct’s human body was an armless half torso cut off at the waist in a tattered fringe of skin. Bat-like wings twisted out of what used to be shoulders, tipped with claws.

It came spiralling out of the sky and crashed into the side of the balloon above them. The balloon rocked, and for a moment the construct clung to the many layers of reinforced silk like a bat, mouth a gaping hole in which metal things glimmered. It stared at them with the empty blank expression that never failed to give her the creeps.

Something was already on fire. Smoke choked the air, and in the smoke they could see the glitter of light on metal: a ring of constructs drawing closer, tightening around them. The sound of grinding metal on metal put Warren’s teeth on edge. She could smell them too: the clean cold scent of cold-boiled steam mingling uncomfortably with not-quite-alive flesh kept in a state of not-quite decay. Murphy shook with fear, trying to put himself in the middle of the group.

_ It’s him. He brought them here, _ she thought, exchanging a look with Garnett. His gaze flicked darkly to Hammond, and she knew if they ever get out of this alive the two men would be having _ words _. But right now…

"What do we do?" she said, and Hammond, the son of a bitch who had brought all of this down on their heads, thought she was talking to him.

"We protect Murphy," he said. "No matter what." He glanced at her. "You thinking of leaving camp earlier than expected, Lieutenant Warren?"

She gritted her teeth, but before she could retort, the bat thing above them crouched, gathering itself to spring. Warren yelled a warning as it leapt, snapping her revolver up and squeezing off a shot. The bullet struck the construct’s wing with a metallic twang, sending it into a spiral. It crashed into a rib, splintering the wood, and the drum-tight canvas reverberated beneath them.

“We go down.” Garnett dropped to his knees, drawing his knife. He stabbed the blade down into the canvas, using both hands to saw it through the toughened fibres, his face darkening with the strain.

There was a shrill scream, and it was coming at them, the bat thing, clawing its way along the ground, wings curled forwards so that the metal webbing shielded its head. Murphy stumbled backwards, bellowing at Garnett to _ hurry. _ Hammond fired repeatedly, the bullets ricocheting off the wings, leaving deep pits in the metal webbing.

Warren dropped to her knees beside Garnett, and clasped her hands over his, helping him drag the knife through the canvas. The fibres were beginning to give way, the tear beginning to spread. She gripped the edge and hauled, spitting curses, until the hole widened enough for them slip through. And then she made the mistake of looking down.

Bridges and netting and ropes ran more or less the length and breadth of the raft, but there were places where they were few and far between, and it was just their damned luck that this was one of them. Here there was nothing but a pair of ropes, one above the other, stretched between some netting that looked impossibly far away and a rigid pole strung with bird snares. There would be nothing to catch them if they fell.

Murphy stumbled forwards, knocking against Warren as he looked down. "Oh Christ," he said, his face ashen. Warren felt a surge of mingled pity and impatience for him. She had a head for heights, but even her stomach felt like it had dropped like a stone at the thought of braving that drop. "I can’t."

"You don’t have a choice. Go," Hammond snapped over his shoulder. One of the construct's wings had been damage, wrenched backward by the impact of a bullet, and it had slowed warily, metal grating against metal as it shifted its wings, trying to find a position that did not leave its head exposed and vulnerable.

Murphy slid his legs into the hole and lowered himself down. Garnett nodded to Warren, "You’re next. Get him to the ship. We’ll be right behind you."

"Charlie..."

He leaned forward, pressed his warm and sweating hand to her cheek and kissed her forehead. "You were all I ever wanted, Roberta," he told her softly, his voice quiet so no one could hear him but her. "_Always_." She gripped his hand and squeezed.

"I love you," she whispered then ducked down, balancing on the rope. There was another, just beneath the canvas, a twin to the one on which she stood. People used these rope bridges every day, she told herself. And they never fell. Well… hardly ever. Although those crazy bastards never had to use the bridges at the same time as Murphy, who was clinging on for dear life, shaking so hard it felt like the rope beneath her feet might be ripped out from underneath her.

"Keep moving!" She had to shout to be heard over the sound of the wind that howled around them. She edged close to Murphy, close enough to jab him in the back. "I said move."

"I can’t."

"You will, or I’ll push you off," she said. "Keep going." She heard gunfire behind her and looked back. Garnett lowered himself through the hole and teetered for a moment precariously on the rope before he got his balance. Then he sidestepped towards her with ease, with no care for the drop beneath him.

"See?" he said. "Nothing to it."

"Go!" Warren said, smacking Murphy’s back lightly. He heaved in a breath, and shot a look back at her, his eyes hidden. She shivered, thanking God he was still wearing the spectacles. But he began to move, edging along the rope. Behind Garnett, Hammond dropped onto the rope, which dipped unnervingly under the extra weight. Murphy let out an unintelligible cry, but kept going, speeding up as he saw the promise of safety ahead.

Once he was close enough he threw himself forward onto the net, so relieved he didn’t see the construct that dropped down from where it was clinging to the underside of a rib.

It was a small one. Child-sized, its grey body encircled with bands of iron sunk deep into the flesh. It hissed, crouching like a cat about to spring, and Murphy panicked, nearly knocking Warren from the rope as he barrelled back into her.

It came at him in an awkward unnatural crawl with limbs that seemed indefinably wrong, as if they bent the wrong way. A high keening sound emerged from its throat as it clawed at Murphy’s legs with ragged fingers. He kicked out at it, his boot colliding with its jaw with the splintering crunch of breaking bone.

Warren hooked her arm over the rope and fumbled at her holster for the revolver. Murphy lurched backward again when the construct sprang, and this time his back slammed into her legs and knocked them off the rope.

She cried out, the arm hooked over the top rope grabbing reflexively, but that accomplished nothing other than ripping her nails. For a horrible instant she was in free fall. Then her chest hit the lower rope and she clung to it, her lower body dangling free with nothing beneath her but the empty air and the snatching wind.

And it was coming at her, the construct, fast and agile, swarming hand over hand along the rope. Its mouth dropped open to reveal broken little stubs of teeth. It snapped at the air with breathy mewling snarls, and Warren recoiled, felt her grip on the rope slip further.

Garnett kicked out at it and the construct crouched back, snarling. Hammond yelled, "Get down!" and fired, the shot knocking the construct from the rope and sending it spiralling downward.

Garnett gripped her arm and hauled her up. He held onto her for a moment, his arm around her back, his forehead against her hair. Then Hammond screamed at them to go, and they looked back and saw what was swarming along the ropes towards them. 

They fled, scrambling westwards towards the docks.

** **

* * *

** **

It wasn’t far in the grand scheme of things, but to Warren the journey across the underside of the raft felt like miles. They found bodies: what remained of the people who'd been on the underside prior to the attack. Anyone who might have raised the alarm had been picked off first, and additional lines had been dropped to match the main anchor line so that more constructs could climb at once. This had been a coordinated attack, and that was a terrifying thought because she hadn't thought the constructs capable of that level of planning.

They heard screams from time to time as the constructs above them found some poor soul to make use of. The cries of terror and fear made her close her eyes in dread and guilt, but there was nothing they could do. She only hoped that Addy was smart enough and resourceful enough to make her way back to the dock.

They were almost there when something big spiralled downwards, thick black smoke streaming in its wake. An airship aflame.

_ No, _ she thought. _ No no no, you son of a bitch no. _

"Was that the _Quin_?" Garnett asked. He knew only too well what that ship had meant to her. Warren shook her head in numbed horror.

"No," she said, although the truth was she had no idea if it had been the _Quin_ or not. She didn’t think so, but she couldn’t be sure. "No, it was too big."

He looked at her, doubt shining in his eyes, then nodded, mouth a tight line. "Yeah. Yeah, you’re right," he said, and Warren felt a prick of affection for him, that even now, after everything that had happened, he was trying to reassure her.

Warren went first up the ladder to the docks, shoving Murphy aside. She hauled herself up and over, and knew at once that something was wrong. There were no ships left in dock at all. The _Quin_ had gone.

Murphy came up next, clawing himself up onto the deck, his glasses knocked askew. His flat metallic eyes took in the empty moorings and swung towards her. "Well, that’s just great. Now what?"

"Shut up," she said mechanically. In the smoke she could hear something coming, the squeak of badly-oiled wheels, the screech of metal on metal. Murphy glanced at her, breathing ragged, lips bloodless with fear.

"Was Hammond telling the truth?" she asked him, her voice low. "Do they really leave you alone?"

"Guess we’re going to find out."

Behind them, Garnett was climbing to his feet, followed by Hammond.

"There’s no way in hell you’d ever have got to California," she said, her eyes on the smoke. Whatever was coming, it was _ big _. "If that makes you feel any better."

Slowly, he swung his gaze towards her. "How the hell would that make me feel better?" he demanded. "I was never going to go to California. I was planning on ditching that bastard the first chance I got."

Hammond scoffed under his breath. Muttered, "Of course."

Garnett moved close to Warren. "Oh shit," he breathed and Warren very definitely concurred,

She could see it now, the thing in the smoke. A hulking mass of a thing, a massive spider with a domed body and segmented legs that arched high up above its bulk, tipped with pincers. Three heads had been sunk into the convex curve of its chest, buried in the metal as if in quicksand, their eyes glittering like shards of obsidian. More torsos were suspended upside down from the spider’s abdomen like egg sacks, heads swivelling their way.

"What the hell is that?" Garnett muttered.

"Something that’s gonna haunt my nightmares," Warren said, although she figured there weren’t going to be a whole lot of nightmares left in her future. Silver linings.

The raft was teetering. It was going to come crashing down and soon. Maybe, if she was lucky, it wouldn’t be this monstrous spider thing that killed them. Garnett felt for her hand and squeezed it.

"Hey," he said. "Just in case I don’t get the chance to say it, I think this bears saying again… I love you, Roberta. I_ love _ you. I always have, and I don’t know what the hell I’d do without you."

She grinned, baring her teeth at him, giddy with adrenaline and fear and love. "Crash and burn," she suggested, and he choked out a laugh.

"Right. That." He glanced at the spider thing, and brought up his gun, sighted along it. "Seems like a pretty damn fine way to go, all things considered. Think we can take out the rest of its legs?"

"Worth a shot."

"Uh… Guys?" Murphy was facing the other way. "I think you’d better see this."

Warren darted a sideways glance at Garnett, then looked over her shoulder just as she felt the wave of warm air against the back of her neck. She smelled the clean fresh sharp scent of an aether-fed boiler, felt the thrum in the air that was as familiar to her as the beat of her own heart.

The _Quin_ rose up past the edge of the dock, its passage awkward and uncontrolled. Warren glimpsed a pale face in the cabin. _ Addy _ . She let out a whoop, because she’d known there was no way in hell she could have lost the _Quin_, not without sensing its loss, and when she got aboard – if she got aboard – she’d kiss that girl on the forehead.

Mack was on deck, yelling to them as he threw down a rope ladder just as one of the balloons holding up the raft exploded in a dull red fireball. The raft tilted so fiercely it knocked her from her feet, but she felt a fierce rush of triumph as the spider thing lost its balance too, and went skittering across the dock, clawing at everything around it in search of purchase.

"Get Murphy on the ship," Garnett yelled, squeezing off a couple of shots. He hit one of the faces in the spider’s chest, striking the forehead dead centre, and the three heads and the dangling torsos opened their mouths and screamed in unison, a shrill screeching sound that drilled into Warren’s skull.

Murphy made a dash for the rope ladder and grabbed it, clinging onto the bottom. The spider thing’s attention shifted, looking to the ship, and Warren’s heart dropped.

It charged. Warren and Garnett threw themselves aside. The spider lashed out at them as it passed, coming damn close to blinding Warren, the claw slashing across the tender skin near her eye.

She hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of her, and suddenly the raft tipped without warning, and she was falling. Saw, in a horrific stomach-lurching moment, the edge plunging upwards to meet her, and the ground far below. Then she slammed hard into a mooring post, and dazed, could only watch as boxes and crates and bodies rained past her over the edge.

_ Garnett _ , she thought, _ Oh God, Charlie _. She could still feel his hand on her cheek, his mouth on her skin. She was still aching a little, the good kind of ache.

She looked up, saw the _Quin_ thrown off-balance by the spider clinging to its side. The monstrous thing had dug its legs into the planks, and was lashing out at Murphy. The raft juddered with an awful creaking sound, and god knew that couldn’t be anything good.

"Roberta!"

She twisted around, saw Garnett, bruised up but alive, crawling along the mooring posts towards her. He collapsed, and pressed his forehead against hers. Warren reached up, cupped his cheek.

"I thought you were dead."

"So did I."

Warren heard shouting. She looked up, saw Hammond, balanced precariously on the rail, firing upwards at the spider, at her goddamn ship. The spider scrabbled at the side of the ship, then lost its grip with a screech of fury. Warren flinched, saw in a slow dawning horror what was going to happen.

The spider crashed into the side of the dock as it fell, splintering the planks beneath Hammond and sending him plunging after the spider. The impact tilted the raft still further, tipping Warren and Garnett towards the edge. She looked up, saw Addy staring white-faced at her through the glass of the cockpit.

_ Shit, _ she thought, dragging a breath into her lungs. Hoping to hell that Addy knew what she was doing, Warren nodded to her, a single jerk of her head. Then to Garnett, she said, "You ready to do something crazy?"

"Oh Christ," he muttered. But then he nodded. "Yeah, I’m game."

"You’re such a badass, Charlie," she said and flashed a grin. "It’s why I love you." She reached for Garnett’s hand, and they rose to a half-crouch, balanced on the mooring post.

She counted to three, felt her perch shift beneath her, the growing pull of gravity, and when the _Quin_ dropped like a stone she was ready.

"Now," she cried, and they jumped.

There was a moment in free fall, the smell of smoke and steam and the sound of someone screaming. She was pretty sure, looking back in the days to come, that the person screaming had been herself.

She hit the deck badly, her leg wrenching beneath her with a sharp spasm of pain in her ankle. She lay there, gasping for air, thinking for a moment that she was dead, that this was what being dead felt like. It wasn’t so bad, considering. Not much worse than being alive.

Then Garnett coughed. "Roberta, you okay?"

She laughed up at the sky, at the underside of the _Quin_’s balloon. "Yeah. Yeah, I’m good."

He groped for her, half dragged himself towards her. His expression was strange, like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. 

The _Quin_ shuddered, engines straining as Addy brought it to bear. As they gained altitude, she heard the squeal of tortured metal. Garnett helped her up and she leaned against him, staring with Mack and Murphy at the sight of Camp Blue Sky, the last of the skybound havens and her home for three years, even if she’d spent more time off it than on, spinning downwards in a slow stately dive.

"I can’t believe it’s gone," Garnett said. He sounded numb

"The end of an era," Warren said, wondering how many people other than them escaped. Aside from the crashed airship, there’d been other ships in dock. They couldn’t be the only ones. They’d regroup, pick themselves up again, keep on surviving, because that was what people mostly did. Broken hearts had a way of mending. 

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, pressing his face against her hair. And maybe it was the end of an era, she thought, as she watched Murphy stagger away towards the steps that led down into the cabin, but there was also a chance that it was the start of something new.

God, she hoped so.


End file.
